Chapter 2

‘Right, you bunch of tearaways,’ said Fitzy with a grin. ‘You all know the routine. Now that the tent’s up, we need to rustle up some business. Can’t have a circus without punters, can we?’

The Penny Gaff Gang – Lizzie, Dru, Hari, Malachy, Erin and Nora – all knew what was being asked of them. Fitzy had laid out piles of freshly printed posters, leaflets and tickets.

‘Promotion!’ he announced, putting his thumbs through his braces, just like his son. ‘Comes before performance. Not in the dictionary, mind you. Ah, Collette! Nice of you to join us.’

Dru’s sister joined them, looking dazzling in a white satin dress bedecked with sequins. As they all gathered up armfuls of posters, Lizzie nudged Dru. ‘Ain’t she meant to be in rehearsal?’

‘Papa excused her from practice because of her bad back,’ Dru whispered, ‘but you know how Fitzy is. If you can’t do one job, he’ll find you another.’

‘Well, what are you all waiting for?’ cried Fitzy. ‘Go and get some bums on seats!’

Chatting excitedly, the group of friends headed down into the streets of Edinburgh. Lizzie loved this part of circus life – she could explore a new city, make money for the circus and make the locals’ eyes light up with joy all at the same time.

Fitzy’s parting shout rang in their ears: ‘And try not to wind up the rozzers, for heaven’s sake…’

‘Us, get into trouble with the police?’ Malachy said once his father was out of earshot. ‘Whatever gives him that idea?’

Putting up posters for the circus was a street crime, except there wasn’t a victim. Two of the children kept lookout, while a third hastily slapped a poster on the wall and slathered it with paste. Then they bustled away, quick as could be, before any patrolling police officers could catch them.

That method worked just fine on the outskirts of the city, where posters could be stuck up on the walls of old buildings, billboards, closed-down shops and abandoned houses, or even nailed to trees. But in the city’s heart, where shoppers jostled against one another, they had to use different tactics – they had to get the shopkeepers on their side.

When the crowd of circus children pushed their way into MacAllan’s Tailors on Princes Street, the bald, severe-looking man behind the counter stiffened on the spot. Lizzie saw his hand creeping under the counter and she clutched Malachy’s arm, thinking he was going for a gun. But instead the man lifted out a knobbly stick.

‘We’ll no’ be having any hanky-panky in my shop,’ he warned them. ‘If you’re no’ buying, then clear off.’

Lizzie licked her lips, bracing herself to ask the man if he wouldn’t mind putting up a poster in his shop window. But Collette swept past her, smiling like an angel, holding the poster up. ‘Would you mind putting this up, m’sieu? You can have some free tickets in exchange.’

The moment the man heard her charming French accent, his anger melted away. ‘Free tickets, you say? And you’ll be in the show?’

‘But of course!’

‘Well, I’m sure I could find room for a wee poster…’

‘It’s funny,’ Lizzie whispered to Nora. ‘I always think of Collette as one of us, but really she’s nearly a grown-up.’

Nora nodded. ‘She’s eighteen. That’s old enough to get married if she wants.’

As the friends strolled down Princes Street, leaving a trail of posters in windows behind them, they curtseyed or lifted their hats to the impressive-looking people who passed by them on the pavement. Lizzie hadn’t known Edinburgh was a centre of fashion, but everyone she saw seemed to know how to dress. She saw smart tailcoats, silk cravats, shining toppers, and so much tweed it was like being out with a shooting party.

‘All these shops are selling the same sort of cloth,’ Lizzie pointed out. ‘Tweeds and tartans and such.’

‘Scotland’s famous for wool the world over,’ said Hari. ‘They’re proud of their fabrics here. With good reason.’

‘“If it wasnae for the weavers,”’ Erin sang, ‘“what would we do?”’

Dru paused and looked longingly into a window, where a huge selection of kilts and plaids were on display. ‘I need a souvenir,’ he suddenly announced. ‘I am going to buy a kilt.’

Lizzie gawped at him. ‘But … you’ve heard what they say…’

‘Ah, oui,’ said Dru. ‘To wear the kilt properly, a man must wear nothing at all beneath. Let the air in, no? Very bracing.’

‘Dru!’ Lizzie burst out laughing as Erin and Nora flushed and giggled.

Collette just rolled her eyes. ‘Always ’ee is like this,’ she said, sighing. ‘Trying to be the centre of attention.’

Dru shrugged. ‘What’s the problem? The kilt is very dashing, I think.’

‘You’re a high wire performer, you great twit!’ Lizzie said, gasping for breath. ‘What if you went up on the wire with a kilt on, and everyone saw up it?’

Malachy doubled over with laughter. ‘We’d be ruined … but it might be worth it! Oh Lord, the look on people’s faces!’

Just then, a noise squealed and blared into Lizzie’s ears. She jumped a foot in the air and covered her ears up. It was painful to listen to, whatever it was.

‘What’s that horrible racket?’ she asked the others.

‘It’s the cry of the Loch Ness Monster!’ Hari shouted above the din. ‘Run for your life!’

Malachy laughed and pointed to a man on the street corner. He wore a kilt and sporran, and his red-veined cheeks bulged out like angry swellings as he blew and blew into a pipe. Under his arm was … a thing, and Lizzie realized that the sound was coming out of it. It seemed to be part sack, part bellows, and part plumbing.

‘The Highland bagpipes,’ Malachy said. ‘I love ’em. The sound of the bagpipes made Scotland’s enemies flee in terror before the warriors even appeared.’

‘I bet it bloomin’ did,’ Lizzie said. ‘It sounds worse than Akula the elephant when she’s got a bellyache.’

Erin pointed to a crowd of people moving away up the street. ‘Looks like they all agree with you.’

‘Scots, running from bagpipes?’ Malachy shook his head. ‘Never happen. That lot are heading over to the Assembly Rooms. Must be some kind of big do on there.’

‘So let’s flyer ’em!’ Lizzie ran to the throng of people and began stuffing circus flyers into their hands. ‘There you go, sir. Fitzy’s Circus Spectacular, in Holyrood Park! Bring the kids!’

‘Wee ’uns?’ the baffled, bearded man said. ‘I haven’t got any.’

‘So borrow some,’ Lizzie grinned. ‘Here you go, madam…’

The Penny Gaff Gang moved along the queue, passing out flyers as they went. Further down the road they passed some stern-looking people handing out flyers of their own. Lizzie took one out of curiosity. END INFANT LABOUR, it declared, along with a grisly illustration of a child being eaten alive by a machine.

‘Reformists,’ Malachy muttered.

Lizzie gave the man a cheerful circus flyer and a broad smile. ‘Fair exchange,’ she said.

Soon they reached the Assembly Rooms. Lizzie looked up at the impressive building, with its columns and porch like an ancient Greek temple and warm light shining from its tall windows. The dear old show tent would look a bit shabby next to that, she thought. But curiosity nudged her. Fitzy’s Circus needed to pull crowds of this size. This was their competition – what could all these people be so interested in? She approached a lady with her hands thrust into a muff the size of a baby bear.

The lady peered down at her through little half-moon glasses. ‘Yes?’

‘What’s everyone come here to see?’

‘Why, Mr Grant, of course!’ The lady drew her hand out and pointed to a poster.

PUBLIC SÉANCE, the poster declared, BY MR DOUGLAS GRANT, WORLD-FAMOUS SPIRITUALIST AND MEDIUM. Lizzie stared at the picture of Grant, partly at his broad chin and vast moustache, but more at the way his feet were clearly hovering above the ground, his toes pointed downwards.

‘He’s flying!’ Lizzie declared in amazement.

The people around her tutted, and someone muttered something about ‘ruffians spoiling the vibrations’. The old lady made a face, as if she smelled something bad.

Malachy quickly pulled Lizzie away. ‘They’re a bit posh, this lot,’ he muttered. ‘Still, we ought to get inside. You could learn a lot from this Grant bloke.’

‘What, like how to fly?’ Lizzie said, not bothering to hide her scorn. The crowd could think what they liked. ‘It’s a bloomin’ stage trick, that. Got to be.’

‘That don’t matter,’ whispered Malachy. ‘The money these folks are spending is real, even if his powers ain’t!’

He had a point, Lizzie realized. Despite being a genuine psychic, she didn’t have Grant’s pulling power. Besides, how could she show people her powers were real unless she could lure them into her tent in the first place? Showmanship mattered, and this Douglas Grant obviously had cartloads of it.

‘Fine. Let’s get some tickets,’ she said.

Nora ran up the steps past the queue to investigate, but came back shaking her head. She mouthed the words three shillings each to Lizzie and mimed hanging herself and sticking her tongue out.

Lizzie sighed and turned to go, but before she’d taken three steps, a soft whistle caught her attention. A handsome young man was lurking in one of the archways. He tipped his hat at her and gave a wink.

‘Ticket tout,’ Malachy said with a grimace.

‘Pas du tout,’ Collette said. ‘’Ee looks nice.’

The man beckoned them over with his finger, and without hesitating, Collette headed over to him. The others followed until they were all standing together in a side alley. The man’s grin showed white teeth and made Lizzie think of foxes.

‘Criminal price they’re charging, eh?’

‘Criminal,’ Lizzie agreed.

‘I’m no tout. And when I was your age, I’d have sneaked in the side entrance,’ he said. ‘Reckon I’m still game. How about you?’

‘Lead the way,’ Lizzie said, laughing.

There was nobody standing watch over the side door. The man gently turned the handle and eased the door open. Malachy moved forward, but the man stopped him. ‘Ladies first, laddie.’ Collette giggled as she slipped past him and into the building.

‘What do we call you?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Call me Fergus Campbell,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘You’ll not have heard of me, not yet. But you will.’

As her hand touched his, a sudden image blazed across Lizzie’s inner vision.

Campbell was scribbling notes by candlelight: excited, on the trail of something big. Now he was talking to a policeman, writing down more notes. And then he was proudly watching a newspaper roll off the printing press.

‘You’re a newspaper reporter!’ Lizzie cried.

‘Don’t shout,’ he said through his teeth, ‘or they’ll be down on me like hawks. You’re right, though. What was it gave me away? Inky fingers, eh?’

‘Something like that,’ Lizzie said, and relished his appraising look. Let him wonder how I knew, she thought.

With the Assembly Rooms packed to the rafters out front, it was child’s play to sneak backstage and into the wings. Lizzie began to panic, certain they would be discovered, but Dru was able to shinny up a rope to an upper platform and let a rope ladder down. One by one, they clambered up into the dusty dark to a perch where they could watch the show in secrecy.

‘Nobody’s been up here in years!’ Erin whispered.

‘Ugh!’ said Collette. ‘Dust marks on my dress.’

‘All of you, shush!’ Malachy hissed.

Fergus Campbell nodded and held his notebook ready – Lizzie noticed he had suddenly become a lot more serious. Somehow, she didn’t think he was here to review the show. If that was the case, he’d surely be sitting out front. No, Lizzie was sure the journalist was on the trail of a sensational story of some sort.

A tall, slender man in an evening suit walked onto the stage and strolled back and forth, straightening his cuffs and looking at his pocketwatch. ‘That’s him,’ Fergus whispered to her. ‘Grant. The medium.’

‘Two minutes to curtain, Mister Grant!’ said a hoarse-voiced stagehand. The star medium gave him a vague wave of thanks, then poured a glass of water and gargled with it.

When the curtains parted, the applause began. He ain’t even done anything yet, Lizzie thought, irritated. Grant raised his hands, modestly accepting the crowd’s adoration.

‘As a son of the Highlands,’ he began, ‘my heart leaps like a mountain stag now that I walk once more among my people.’

‘He means he’s glad to be home,’ Hari whispered.

Grant raised a dramatic finger. A thick, velvety silence hung in the air. Nobody dared to breathe.

‘They are close, my friends,’ he said with a nod and a smile. ‘Aye, you know of whom I speak. You need no miracles to convince you. The beloved are close … they who the ignorant call “dead” but who we know to be simply passed over.’

Lizzie looked at the enraptured faces in the crowd – they were drinking in every word.

‘Hark!’ said Grant. ‘Can you hear them? Do you not hear their voices, sweet as fairy bells? No? Then we must believe. If we become like little children in our innocence, perhaps the spirits will speak. Will you speak to us, spirits?’

The stage lights lowered to a dim glimmer, and then to near total darkness. The audience gasped – Grant’s upraised hands were glowing with a faint light.

‘I’ve heard he does this,’ Fergus murmured.

Lizzie caught a whiff of something unexpected and yet familiar. The harsh, pungent smell stuck in the back of her throat. ‘It’s oil of phosphorus!’ she said as she covered her nose and mouth. ‘That’s what’s making the glow!’

It was cruel how smells could conjure up memories. As if it had been yesterday, Lizzie was flung back to the days when she was a little girl. Her brother, already dying from lung disease, had come staggering home every day with his clothes reeking of phosphorus.

He had worked in a match factory. Lucifer matches, they were sometimes called – and just like the Devil, they had corrupted what was good and true. The chemicals in that hellish place had destroyed his health, sending him to an early grave.

If he hadn’t have worked there, though, Lizzie might be dead too – of starvation. The money her brother brought home was to feed the family, and it did, but her father stole most of it and spent it on drink. Then Lizzie’s mother too had fallen ill and had slowly wasted away, coughing her last breaths into a bloody handkerchief.

‘You all right, Liz?’ Malachy asked. ‘You look sick.’

‘It’s the smell,’ Liz said, not wanting to say any more.

‘Phosphorus oil, you reckon?’ Fergus eagerly jotted down a note in his book. ‘I say, look at him now. He’s levitating!’

Down on the stage, Grant was indeed rising into the air. Someone in the crowd gasped out loud and fainted dead away, and a thin voice from the front row began to chant, ‘Oh, we are blessed! Oh, we are blessed!’ again and again, like some deranged inmate from a lunatic asylum.

‘I’d heard of levitation,’ Hari said softly, ‘but I never expected to see it. In India, yogis practise for years and maybe lift half an inch off the ground. This is astonishing!’

Dru laughed. ‘Not really. It’s just another trick.’

Fergus, pencil at the ready, asked, ‘How’s he doing it?’

‘He is standing on something … a bar, I think.’

‘You’re right, Dru!’ Erin said. ‘I can see it now too.’

Malachy said, ‘It’s painted black, so the audience can’t see it with the lights turned down. Clever.’

The only sound up on the platform was the scratching of Fergus’s pencil. ‘It was my lucky day running into you lot,’ he said. ‘Grant’s a pompous windbag. I’ve been looking forward to letting some of the hot air out of him.’

‘Will you remember us when you are famous, Mister Campbell?’ joked Collette.

Fergus glanced up at her. ‘I’ll remember you for the rest of my life, lass,’ he said, and quickly went back to writing. Collette pretended to be embarrassed, but Lizzie could tell she was pleased.

As Grant performed trick after trick, the circus children explained to Fergus how he was doing them. Hari pointed out all the mind-reading tricks he and his uncle used, while Dru and Malachy debunked the stage magic.

Lizzie almost felt sorry for Grant. By the time Fergus Campbell had revealed his stagecraft secrets, nobody would ever trust his mediumship again. She couldn’t even be sure it was right to do this to him – the audience were fools, but they believed. If they found some comfort in all this, then what was the harm in it?

‘Now, my brothers and sisters, I will attempt to speak with a spirit. Someone close to one of you.’ Grant slowly looked over the audience, while from somewhere an accordion played a mournful tune. Lizzie didn’t like it – it sounded like funeral music.

Fergus readied his notebook. ‘An actual séance? Let’s see how he fakes this.’

‘I would like to call for a volunteer,’ said Grant. ‘Is there anyone among you who wishes to speak to the dear departed?’

‘Aye,’ rang out a voice.

All eyes turned to look as a burly man stood up. His clothes were finely tailored and all black – the colour of mourning.

‘I need to speak to my sister,’ he said. ‘My dead sister. On a matter of the utmost urgency.’